


The Visitor

by prairiecrow



Series: Dragon Space Nine [6]
Category: Dragonriders of Pern - Anne McCaffrey, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: Age Difference, F/M, Forbidden Love, M/M, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-16
Updated: 2011-11-16
Packaged: 2017-10-26 03:21:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,852
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/278093
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/prairiecrow/pseuds/prairiecrow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Garak receives a visitor — and a surprise. Set in the Dragon Space Nine crossover universe, shortly after Garak and Ziolth got badly Threadscored over Southern Boll.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Visitor

**Author's Note:**

> A shameless Pern AU, folks. I hope you'll forgive me for the liberties I've taken and enjoy the story for what it is. The basic premise: a shuttle carrying Julian Bashir, Miles O'Brien, Kira Nerys and Elim Garak has crossed a dimensional rift and crash landed on Pern. The four Offworlders are taken in by Fort Weyr, where an accident of Impression leaves Bashir, Kira and Garak with dragons and Miles O'Brien alone at Smithcrafthall to continue figuring out the puzzle of how they might possibly get home again.
> 
> Silvena is, at this point, a little over sixteen Terran years old. Niona and T’sol are Weyrwoman and Weyrleader of Fort Weyr.

Garak was sitting in bed, propped up on several pillows and sewing the seam of a bodice, when Ziolth woke up enough to announce:  _Esseth comes._

He looked up toward the arch leading to the ledge outside their weyr, greatly surprised. “Silvena?” It had been almost a week and a half since he and Ziolth had been badly scored in the disastrous Threadfall over Southern Boll and he’d received his share of visitors in the meantime, but for a queen’s rider, even a junior queen’s, to pay a call on an injured blue rider was quite unheard of to the best of his knowledge.

 _Esseth says she brings food._

Garak sighed softly and laid aside the bodice on the bedspace that Julian usually occupied, reaching for his sewing kit to put away needle and thread. “Who hasn’t?” he quipped. Food was the way Fort weyrfolk demonstrated affection and reassurance; he’d eaten better in the last ten days, he’d warrant, than he’d eaten since arriving on Pern, and if he wasn’t careful he’d soon start to lose his figure, which at his age had a natural tendency to spread at the waist. 

Within thirty seconds he heard the distinctive sound of a dragon backwinging to land on their ledge, along with Ziolth’s respectful chirrup to the young queen. Glad that he’d chosen to put on a rather fetching woolen tunic of his own design, Garak composed himself against the pillows and smiled warmly when his guest entered. “Good morning to you, Lady Silvena! I do hope you’ll pardon me for not rising to greet you.”

Silvena blushed a little and smiled tentatively in response. In spite of having Impressed a queen she had not lost her inherent shyness, nor the long fall of auburn hair that was now neatly braided and pinned up on her dainty head. The overall effect was to make her neck look even longer, and Garak decided that he really must design something for her that made her look a little less like a half-starved wherry. Though he had to admit that the shade of cool grey she was currently wearing did wonderful things for her pale complexion.

“Good morning, G’rak.” She approached the bedside, a basket slung over her arm. “I’ve brought you fresh fruit from Ista. J’lian said it will help you to heal.”

Garak put on an aggrieved expression. “Have you two been talking behind my back?” he asked piteously. 

The smile became brighter. “Only a little.”

“I’m off my feet for ten days and all the best gossip passes me by!” Both chairs were at the table all the way across the weyr’s main room so Garak patted the edge of the bed beside him. For a moment he thought that Silvena would insist on fetching another seat, but after a brief hesitation she accepted the invitation, setting the basket down on the floor at her feet since the bedside table was taken up with pieces of fabric cut to pattern. “From Ista, you say? The greenhouses? Isn’t that rather expensive?”

Another blush. “I have a little money, and…” A glance away, a lightly bitten lower lip. “It was really no trouble.”

“Oh, believe me, I appreciate it. Did you know I’ve had the most intense craving for redfruit lately?”

Her gaze returned to his face, but not before darting to the shape of his left leg under the blankets, bandaged and propped up on two pillows of its own. “Really?”

He nodded earnestly. “So you see, your gift couldn’t be better timed.”

“I… I’m glad.” Another slight hesitation, then a rush of words: “I’ll bring you anything you need! After all, if it wasn’t for you…” For a moment she smiled widely, her dark eyes shining with unmitigated joy. “I would never have found Esseth.”

As a rule Garak was an unrepentant cynic, but he found her gratitude oddly touching nonetheless. “And if I hadn’t found you, surely another Search rider would have. You possess a remarkable gift.”

“But you were the one who brought me here. I’ll never forget that…” And then she began to weep, big tears spilling onto her rounded cheeks.

Alarmed, Garak held out a hand to her. “My dear child —” he began, and was utterly confounded when she covered her face with her hands and leaned against his chest, tucking her head under his chin and sobbing unconsolably. He hesitated, trying to decide on the best course of action when a junior queen rider is wetting your tunic with her tears, then settled for putting one arm lightly around her back and patting her upper arm with his other hand, making little comforting noises.

Ziolth did not help matters any when he remarked, as casually as if he were commenting on the weather:  _She loves you._

 _“She — what?”_  He did not voice the exclamation, but it was a near thing.  _“That’s impossible! The girl barely knows me!”_

 _I could ask Esseth —_

 _“Heavens, no!”_  The prospect of such mad speculation getting back to the young woman in his arms was too horrible to contemplate… but he knew and trusted Ziolth’s ability to make the occasional stunningly insightful observation on Human feelings and motivations. And he had to admit that it was certainly a viable explanation for the sudden burst of violent weeping.

His train of appalled thought was interrupted by Silvena’s soft sobbing gasps: “When I heard — when Esseth told me — that Ziolth had been scored so badly, I — I thought —” She shuddered, her voice dropping to a quavering whisper: “I was afraid…”

Garak adopted a bright and breezy tone. “But you can see with your own eyes that we’re doing very well, all things considered.”

She was silent for a little span of heartbeats, then raised her head and looked up into his face. The depth of emotion in her eyes, warm and yearning, made him go cold all over. 

 _I told you so,_  Ziolth said, then added:  _Esseth says she has been this way from the moment she first saw you at the Hold._

Garak took hold of her shoulders and gently but firmly put her away from him, back into her original sitting position, then withdrew his hands and folded them in his lap. “My dear Silvena, I’m merely a blue rider.”

She wiped her eyes with the heel of her hand. “Niona thinks you should have Impressed a bronze. So does T’sol.”

Now  _there_  was a surprising tidbit of information, but Garak did not allow it to divert him. “That doesn’t change the fact of what I am. Not to mention that I’m many, many Turns older than you are.”  _And an Offworld alien_ , he added mentally, but chose to assume that she was fully aware of that particular factor. The girl might be inappropriately besotted but she certainly wasn’t stupid. Or blind.

Silvena buried her face in her hands again, almost moaning: “I know that! Don’t you think I know that?” A miserable pause and a watery sniffle. “But it doesn’t change anything.”

He was recovered from the shock now and rapidly considering the situation from all angles. “I think I know how this came about,” he said, and waited until she dropped her hands and looked at him again. “Tell me, before Ziolth and I came along had anyone ever paid you that sort of attention?”

“Of course not.” She seemed surprised that the thought should have ever crossed his mind.

“You were a lonely child, weren’t you? Growing up in your uncle’s Hold with no close relatives, still mourning your father’s passing?” Silvena nodded, and he rewarded her with a smile. “And I was the first man aside from Lord Rigos who ever really noticed you. Of course you were flattered, and you’ve placed more importance on my interest than is strictly reasonable.”

She looked mildly stricken. “I thought you liked me.”

“And I do, quite a bit. But I love Julian. And you are a queen rider: duty dictates that your affections should, and must, lie elsewhere.”

She was silent for a moment, her eyes downcast. “I know.” She reached out and lightly took his right hand. “You’re so  _smart_ , G’rak, and so clever — they’re really not the same thing — and talented, and brave…”

“And ugly,” he said bluntly.

She shook her head at once. “No. Just different. And you  _should_  have had a bronze. But…” She squeezed his fingers when he opened his mouth to speak, an unexpectedly forward gesture. “Niona says that first loves are never forgotten. Is that true?”

He thought of a certain young lady on Cardassia, done to death by his own Order many decades past, and replied: “I’m afraid it is.”

“Then I’ll never forget you, will I?”

“I’d be horribly offended if you did.” He smiled gently to let her know he was only teasing.

She studied his face, seeming deep in thought. Out on the ledge Esseth warbled, prompting an answering chirp from Ziolth, and the tension that had been gathering in Garak’s chest loosened. This episode could have gone very badly indeed if Silvena had reacted like a child denied something she wanted, but instead she had responded with the depth of maturity he’d always suspected she possessed. He felt a surge of affection and pride: she would make a fine Weyrwoman once the passing Turns had graced her with a little more experience. And one day she would make some bronze rider an excellent weyrmate, of that he had no doubt.

She smiled at him as if she could read his thoughts, looking briefly much older than her mere fifteen Turns, and released his hand. “I should go.”

He nodded. “Of course. But I look forward to seeing you again quite soon. I have a design in mind for the most darling dress that would suit you perfectly.”

Silvena rose to her feet and bent to pick up the basket, placing it where she’d been sitting so that he could easily reach it. “That would be lovely — whenever you’re ready.” She cast him one final glance, only lightly edged with desire. “Have Ziolth bespeak Esseth?”

“Certainly.” So she was putting the ball in his court, indicating that she was willing to let him control the degree of their interaction. His estimation of her intelligence and good sense went up a notch or two. “As soon as I’m able to stand and take measurements properly. Good day, my Lady!”

As she took her leave, back straight and head erect, Ziolth asked wistfully:  _Would you have been happier with a bronze?_

“Never, my love!” He leaned back on the pillows, feeling pleasantly weary. “For one thing, your color harmonizes so well with mine. The hide of a bronze would clash hideously.”

A wave of love and gratitude along with a subtle acknowledgement of his jest, and then Ziolth laid his head down again and composed himself for sleep. For his part, Garak reached into the basket his young friend had brought. In truth he  _did_  have a taste for redfruit, and this morning’s events so far had worked up quite an appetite.

THE END


End file.
